Life & Wisdom Quote by Frank Chodorov

Power, Chodorov suggests, is not something the state holds so much as something it hungers for. The phrasing does a lot of work: “acquires” sounds bureaucratic, almost accidental, but the ellipsis-to-accusation pivot (“insatiable lust”) yanks the mask off. He sexualizes the impulse to govern, turning administration into appetite, policy into compulsion. That move isn’t just provocative; it’s strategic. If the state’s motive is “lust,” then reforms, oversight, even good intentions are cosmetic. You can’t negotiate with a craving.

“The State never abdicates” lands like a courtroom verdict. No qualifiers, no “rarely,” no “tends to.” The absolutism is the point: Chodorov is trying to harden the reader against the comforting story that emergencies end and authorities politely return borrowed powers. His target isn’t only the left or the right; it’s the recurring civic fantasy that power can be safely loaned to institutions and later reclaimed without a fight.

The mid-century context matters. Chodorov, a libertarian writer shaped by wartime mobilization, the New Deal’s administrative expansion, and the early Cold War security state, is diagnosing a pattern: crises justify centralization, centralization becomes infrastructure, infrastructure demands justification. The subtext is almost anthropological: states behave less like neutral tools and more like organisms optimizing for survival and growth. The intended takeaway is bracing and cynical: if you want freedom back, don’t wait for abdication; build constraints so power never “acquires” in the first place.